Xanadu at 40: A look back

Xanadon't

ONJ was her prettiest in this movie.

Roller Disco was dead as a doornail and widely derided by the time the film was released. So the publicity photos and trailers carefully concealed it was involved before the film came out. Much the same way the trailers for Depp's Sweeney Todd hid the fact that it was a musical.

Gene Kelly...A has been on an ego trip trying to be relevant. It is embarrassing.

The Razzies, aka The Golden Raspberry Awards, were invented to honor this film and the Village People/Caitlyn Jenner musical Can't Stop the Music of the same year. X's director Robert Greenwald won the first Razzie for Worst Director.

Don't walk away.

If it's any consolation, Can't Stop the Music beat Xanadu for the worst picture award.

I love this movie.

R9, forget about the blues tonight, sweet thing

My best friend took me to a midnight showing of Xanadu in the West Village in the late 1980s or early 90s thinking i would love it. Among our shared interests were bad camp films. It was his favorite. I thought it was just dreadful without any kind of redeeming camp quality. He couldn't believe I didn't like and I couldn't believe he did.

But our friendship survived.

R9 Agree. The fucking Tubes FTW.

So did Disco really become "the music of the 80s"?

No, it was the music of the 70s and by the time Xanadu was released in 1980 Roller Disco was dead, dead, DEAD!

My Aunt was a buyer at Bloomingdales in 1980 (back then Bloomingdales was “the place” to go, like what say Barney’s was in 2000), and she told me they had a whole section in the store with clothes and accessories — basically a capsule collection dedicated to the release. You see that stuff all the time today of course but in 1980 people weren’t really doing that, so I thought it was interested.

And then the movie was released and it bombed. But she said the clothes still sold well.

I don't care what anybody says, the music is fabulous.

Love the movie / music.

Still play it on ear buds when skating on the street

Own the movie and Broadway soundtracks!

The only watchable moment was the Big Band/Rock mashup.

Box Office

Budget:$20,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA: $1,471,595, 10 August 1980

Gross USA: $22,762,571

Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $22,762,571

I was curious about the director. No it wasn't Nancy Walker… no it wasn't Randall Kleiser… no it wasn't even Gene Kelly.

It was *drum roll* Robert Greenwald. And amazingly he's still active in the biz, mostly producing/directing documentaries now.

R18, Broadway soundtrack??? What an embarrassment for a gay man!

As mentioned above, Robert Greenwald won the first Razzie for Worst Director for this film. Most of the other Razzie awards that year went to Can't Stop the Music.

Cheesy as the movie was, I love the beginning when the muses come to life. Also the part where ONJ demonstrates that she is a muse was kinda clever.

Yeah R3, no roller skating.

Got it.

Also, Tuesday's Wednesday.

People look back and say Olivia's Xanadu and Neil Diamond's "The Jazz Singer" were bombs, but that's kind of ridiculous. The Xanadu soundtrack had many hits for Olivia and ELO, including ONJ's second-biggest hit ever, Magic. Neil Diamond never had 3 consecutive Top Ten songs in his career until "Jazz Singer".

The scene with ONJ dancing with Gene Kelly is absolutely perfect.

From Newton-John's gawky eyes through her fingers moment in the films opening to her "Whole history of the whole history." and the finale dripping beaded outfit in the finale she was wooden and clumped about on roller skates with ankle socks.

Oh, and we have her to thank for the headband craze. Not some queen at Studio One.

Soundtracks aren't box office. R27

Xanadu is one of the most magnificent misguided failures in cinematic history.

I love this film almost beyond measure.

And the soundtrack is magnificent, full stop.

I got depressed when I read the beautiful art deco building they used for exterior shots of Xanadu burned down a few years after the movie was made. What a tragic loss.

Small Art Deco front on BIG warehouse of a building.

I love that movie!

Olivia’s then manager/boyfriend Lee Kramer was the movie’s executive producer. That was the stipulation for Olivia agreeing to be in thus dud.

"Xanadu" and "Cant Stop The Music" are just fun popcorn movies. No one watches expecting "Schindler's List. There is always room for fluff like this.

[quote]Roller Disco was dead as a doornail and widely derided by the time the film was released. So the publicity photos and trailers carefully concealed it was involved before the film came out.

The trailer didn't shy away from the skates. I got to meet ONJ while she was filming and she indeed described it to me as a "Roller Disco Movie".

Going Back To Xanadu (2008 Xanadu documentary)

I still love the title song and it is on my running playlists. Loooove it.

R20 that was in 1980. The movie has been very profitable in the home video market worldwide.

R31, the entrance to Disney Hollywood Studios can help fill the void.

I saw Xanadu when it first came out, and it seemed outdated even then. Now it seems like a weird combination of bad 80s and 70s hair and clothes. Did it destroy Michael Beck’s career?

I do like the music though.

I unabashedly love this movie. Gene Kelly on roller skates to ELO/Jeff Lynne music. Holy trifecta.

Just fast forward through the stupid acting to the musical numbers. The music, dancing and outfits are amazing!!

Wikipedia quotes an interview with the founder of the Razzies who says watching Xanadu on a double bill with Can't Stop the Music for 99 cents is what inspired him to create the award.

I was 10 when this movie came out, and I remember loving the soundtrack, but hating the movie - except for Olivia in her roller girl outfit - she looked so pretty in her legwarmers and braided barrettes.

All of the girls in my neighborhood bought Goody braided barrette kits, but none of them could figure out how to braid them. I did my sister's kit, and she told her friends, and I wound up braiding all of their barrettes for them that summer.

Did you make me for yourself?

Nope, I'm a dude.

It was recently on TV so I DVR'd the stupid thing. And I do mean stupid.

Olivia was robbed of a best actress oscar for Xanadu! sissy spacek’s performance in Nell Part 1: Coal Miner’s Daughter winning that year was the greatest travesty of all time. I have never recovered & will take to my fainting couch. Pearls will be clutched.

I was a little gayling when this came out and I didn't understand why it could be a flop if the songs were on the radio all the time. And they WERE on the radio all the time.

I saw the movie on opening night in my town. Half full audience. At the end, no one clapped, no one booed. They just silently left.

I finger banged my box on opening night.

I love Robin Byrd.

"Magic" from the Xanadu soundtrack was #1 for the whole month of August 1980. Exactly 40 years ago. John Lennon reportedly liked the song at the time. Weird since he was murdered just a few months after he made that statement.

"Magic" really is a great pop song, r55.

Billboard ranked it as the #3 single of the entire year (1980).

And you're right about John Lennon liking the Xanadu songs: John Lennon named "Magic" and "All Over the World" as two recent songs he liked in a Newsweek interview in September 1980, shortly before his death.

I bet yoko liked it too.

I saw this in the theater when I was 15 and I LURVED it!

{quote]I saw the movie on opening night in my town. Half full audience. At the end, no one clapped, no one booed. They just silently left.

Am a life long movie-goer and movie theater manager, in hundreds of screenings I could count on my hand moviess that had applause and I have never heard an audience boo.

Did this movie help kill ONJ's career? By 1983/1984 she was essentially done as a mainstream big selling female pop star. She never had another top 10 hit after 1983

Madonna came along at that time and it was the unofficial start of the 80s and MTV

Razzies can suck it. Xanadu and Can't Stop the Music have more fans then Oscar winner Ordinary People

R60 you dumbass. Madonna did not usher in the 80s or MTV.

R62 I didn't say that, I said MTV , which premiered in 1981, started to blow up and become extremely popular around 83/84, when ONJ, after nearly 20 years of hits, started to fall BIG, commercially and Madonna, like MTV was ascending and that "80s look" came in. There's a saying that the first few years if every decade still has the look and feel of the previous, up until 1983, the 80s had a 70s feel still

Same with the first couple of years of the 90s having an 80s feel still

Madonna was on of the core artists of MTV as they both ascended at the same time, in the 80s and 90s, MTV was even jokingly referred to as Madonna TeleVision, since they played her constantly and had contests with her and all Madonna weekends

ONJ, despite being a big star and visual artist, had very little MTV support and didn't really "ride that wave", by 1985 ONJ's career as a big selling pop star was completely over with, which is fine since she made her mark, I'm just surprised that she didn't jump into the 80s and MTV bandwagon and remain a commercial force

I meant ONJ had about 10 years of hits

Physical was the first commercial video album.

Her last US hit was a top 20 in December of 1985 from the gold album Soul Kiss.

R62, it's "than" you fucking idiot!

I fucking hate it when Madonna or Janet Jackson worshipers stink up threads.

People began to tire of Olivia's sexy schtick. She wasn't exactly a spring chicken anymore. Neither was Madonna really but she was fresh and much more equipped for the MTV generation.

ONJ got married, had a kid, started the Koala Blue stores and didn’t focus on her career at all.

The Rumour was critically acclaimed but her first commercial flop album in 1988.

R70 Soul Kiss was definitely a flop, it merely went gold, 500,000 copies sold, in the US and just made the top 30 at a time when Madonna and Whitney Houston were selling 10 Million plus albums in the US ALONE

They were selling more than 20 TIMES what ONJ was selling, let that sink in

I hope someone on this thread chokes and dies.

[quote]They were selling more than 20 TIMES what ONJ was selling, let that sink in

Given how things eventually turned out for those two, I'd say Olivia won that battle.

Most artists would kill for a career like Olivia's. From a folk start (If Not For You) to country (Let Me Be There) to ballads (Have You Never Been Mellow) to movies (Youre The One That I Want) to harder-edged pop (A Little More Love) to the 11-week at Number1 song (Physical) , I'd say she had a great run.

R73 looks wise maybe, but not wealth wide, especially Madonna's, or career album sales, tours, impact etc

Look I love ONJ, I'm just curious why she wasn't able to adapt to the MTV 80S to stay on top, she could of had a big commercial career, without having to rely on nostalgia , until the 90s at least

R73 and Olivia had breast cancer which supposedly came back, so not really either

No one would want to have cancer

I seriously doubt, Madonna is sitting around going, "Oh I wish I turned out like ONJ, let's famous, way less wealthy and with cancer"

You sound ridiculous

This movie is such a testament to cocaine. Everyone involved is gakked out of their minds. “Greek gods!!! (Sniff) Disco!!! (Sniff) Roller skates!!! (Sniff) Gene Kelly!!! (Sniff) A nightclub!! (Sniff) Muses! (Sniff) Let’s animate this part!!! (Sniff)”

R63 is correct. R77, come sit next to me.

Pussies sniff.

Real muses snort.

R75 Olivia made a decision to step back and focus on her family and having Chloe starting in the mid 80s. She still looked great at this time but probably saw the writing on the wall her days were numbered when Soul Kiss didn’t set the world on fire. She already had great success, won all the music awards and figured to take a step back and if she records an album and it doesn’t go top 10 who cares. I’m doing it for the fans. No one stays on top forever. The smart people leave on their own before being shoved out the door.

OP's flowery description was probably more positive and long winded than reviews of the day.

I loved Xanadu. I was 16 when this delightful bomb dropped on Skinamax. Loved ONJ and a fresh from The Warriors.. Michael Beck. Did I also mention that I LOATHE musicals? The only 3 I can tolerate are 2 ONJ musicals... Xanadu and Grease, and the universally beloved Wizard of Oz. Now where did I store my rollerskates and Walkman? 🤔

The only good thing about the movie was the Jack Mulqueen dresses worn by ONJ.

Bobbi Mannix dresses.

Ugh, Olivia Neutron Bomb. Did she ever sing anything that wasn't god awful? Was she ever in a movie that didn't suck? I don't understand the seventies.

JB : XANADU AND TWO OF A KIND WERE 80S FILMS. EVEN THOUGH THEY SUCKED THE MUSIC WAS GOOD.